NOT TOO LONG ago, Treasury Inflation Protected Security (TIPS) was a relatively obscure investment for safe long-term fixed-income investments. For the first twenty years of the new century, consumer prices were mostly stable or rising at a too-slow-to-notice rate. Why bother with anything related to inflation?
Sadly, persistently low inflation made us complacent on the biggest long-term risk of bond investments — the insidious unexpected inflation that robs us of the purchasing power of our “safe” investments.

AFTER YEARS OF heady gains in the stock market, many investors are facing the same question: To manage risk, they’d like to cut back on one or more of their holdings. But because of the potentially costly tax bill that might result, they aren’t sure exactly how to do that.
How can you square this circle?
One easy option would be to donate appreciated assets to charity. But that would make sense only if it aligns with your charitable goals and,

AT FIRST GLANCE, Social Security appears straightforward. During our working years, we pay into it, and in retirement, it sends us a monthly check, guaranteed for life. Unfortunately, it isn’t always so simple. Below are five aspects of the system that are frequently misunderstood.
Benefits estimates. Look at a Social Security statement, and an easy-to-read chart provides estimates of the benefits available at various ages. The heading above the chart reads, “Personalized Monthly Retirement Benefit Estimates Depending on the Age You Start.” That seems clear.

BOB MADE A very expensive tax mistake. Doctors told Bob that he only has a year to live… What did Bob do?
He decided to gift a house to his only son before passing away. The house is worth $2,000,000 that he bought back in 1970 for $50,000 in an expensive suburb of California.
The son decided to sell the house and paid about $430,000 in federal taxes.
$430,000 that could have been $0 instead…
How?

THE WIDOW TAX is sold to the wrong households. It gets pitched to affluent couples as the reason to convert to a Roth or buy life insurance. The pitch says that when one spouse dies, the survivor files single, lands in a higher bracket, and gets clobbered. I ran the numbers for three couples at three incomes, and at the comfortable end the widow tax often costs nothing, or even less than nothing.
The real cost lands lower down,

IF YOU’RE IN YOUR early 60s and retired, you probably have a lot of financial questions on your mind. The next few years may be among your lowest-income and lowest-tax-paying years. Your salary and bonus years are behind you. Social Security and required minimum distributions from your IRAs and 401(k)s have not started yet. You are hearing advice about doing Roth conversions during this low-tax window, and the arguments are compelling. You may also be thinking about consulting or part-time work to stay active and bring in some income.

I DON’T HAVE MANY regrets in life. But there is one conversation with my mother that I wish I had never had. It was about moving her into an assisted living facility. She was in her 90s, and I thought it would be best for both of us.
My mother would receive better care, and I could take much-needed breaks. She could even keep her house and spend time there when I was with her.
It seemed like a middle-of-the-road approach to providing care.

WHEN I STARTED writing for HumbleDollar, Jonathan gave me some simple but important advice: “Don’t brag about your financial situation. You want readers to like you.” Perhaps that’s one of the reasons he named his financial site HumbleDollar.
I try to follow this advice not only regarding money, but in other aspects of my life. I know how fleeting things can be—especially when it comes to health. Life can change on a dime. It can humble you.

I WAS SCROLLING through social media recently and saw somebody dismiss retirement accounts as “paper wealth.” The argument was familiar: Your money is locked away and you’re waiting for permission to access it.

There’s a grain of truth here. Retirement accounts do come with rules. But much of the discussion online ignores how flexible these accounts actually are. More important, it ignores the enormous tax advantages.
Most people today will likely live well beyond age 59½.

RETIREMENT IS LIFE’S most expensive purchase. During our working years, we deprive our present selves of immediate pleasure by refusing to spend money for nicer cars, a bigger house or a vacation to boast about. Instead, we squirrel away those saved dollars with an eye toward keeping the future us fed, clothed and living indoors. 
At age 64, after decades of choosing to save and invest a large chunk of each paycheck, rather than spend it,

I’VE RECENTLY MADE the most significant change to my own portfolio in thirty five years. For the first time I’ve moved away from pure market-cap investing, tilting meaningfully toward Europe and Southeast Asia and bringing my US technology concentration down to around fifteen percent.
I’m retired. I don’t need to chase the outperformance that concentration might deliver, and I don’t need the potential volatility that comes with it. This is a personal position rather than any kind of recommendation;

A POPULAR JOKE about retirement is that it can be hard work. That’s because financial planning is like a jigsaw puzzle, and retirement often means rearranging the pieces.
In the past, I’ve discussed two key pieces of that puzzle: how to determine a sustainable portfolio withdrawal rate and how to decide on an effective asset allocation. But there’s one more piece of the puzzle to contend with: taxes. Especially if you’re planning to retire on the earlier side,

I WAS THINKING ABOUT Jonathan the other day on my morning walk, which happens more often than you might think. It’s hard not to think about him when you have HumbleDollar coasters in your living room and a HumbleDollar shopping bag in your car that you use for groceries. My wife confiscated the HumbleDollar cup I had been using for my morning tea, and it now has a new home in our bathroom holding her toothbrush and toothpaste.

MY COWORKER RECENTLY retired. He is 50 years old and has been with the company for over 25 years.
The company offers a decent 401(k) match (100% match on 6% of your salary) along with other great benefits.
In his case, how can he generate income? How can you retire early if most of your assets are in retirement plans?
Most tax-advantaged accounts have restrictions on withdrawals, but there are a few strategies that many people don’t know of:
 

MY RETIREMENT HAS been wonderful so far. Honestly, sometimes I have to stop and remind myself how lucky I am. Rachel and I have our health and enjoy each other’s company, which is not always true when a couple retires. However, there are four things that concern me as I reach my mid-70s.
Loneliness
I tried calling Mark, my old high school friend, a couple of weeks ago, and I haven’t heard from him.